Food and Fun

If you want some of the freshest produce around, you’ll find it at a local farmer’s market.The reasoning is simple. There is no “jet lag” involved. While most of the produce that hits the supermarket shelves is trucked in, local produce has traveled less than a day to get to market, making it as garden fresh as possible.

Grill enthusiasts who depend on barbecue sauces and marinades to awaken meats may be missing the boat.Nothing can add character and a kick to beef and pork like a good rub.A rub is simple, dry powder usually made of spices, salts and sugars that’s applied to meat before it’s grilled.It not only boosts the flavor, but also forms a tasty crust by clinging to the meat.According to the Web site www.fiery–foods.com, rubs work well because they “open up” the meat.

When Stephen Wright decided to enter the Tabernacle United Methodist Church Chili Cook-off on April 12 to benefit the 2008 Relay for Life, he had a plan.It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was a plan.“I told ‘em, I’d probably be better off to go by Wendys, buy a bunch of chili, put it in a pot and try to fake out everybody,” he said, laughing.

The Lancaster faith community is encouraged to attend the Fifth Annual Lancaster Community Prayer Luncheon on May 1 at Covenant Baptist Church, 165 Craig Manor Road.

This year’s keynote speaker is Kelly McCorkle Parkison, who served as Miss South Carolina 2002 and participated in the television reality show, “Amazing Race.”

In addition to McCorkle Parkison, the service will include prayers offered to God for our families, churches, our government leaders, military and civil servants and our nation said Dr. Bert Welch, Covenant senior pastor.

When Scots-Irish settlers migrated to the Carolinas in the 18th century, they brought familiar names like Lancaster, Chester and York with them.

They also brought what they had learned from cooking in the open hearths of their homes in Ireland and the Pennsylvania settlements.

Those attending the annual Andrew Jackson Birthday Celebration on Saturday at Andrew Jackson State Park will get a brief glimpse of colonial cooking from demonstrations by the Cooking Guild of the Catawba Valley.

No one knows when or where the idea for Scripture Cake came from, but its ingredients are rooted in Bible verses.

The late Charlemae Hill Rollins believed it was so significant in her own life that she included the recipe for it in her book, "Christmas Gif': An Anthology of Christmas Poems, Songs and Stories, Written by and about Negroes."

Disappointed that there were so few written resources about the Christmas traditions she learned as a child in Yazoo City, Miss., Rollins wrote the anthology in 1963 to pass along what she had learned from her grandmother, a slave.